A nice little hike on a sunny windy day

Nice to see a sea of green again

 

Yesterday we had a nice woodsy hike on some trails in the Hullett Marsh, about 1/2 hr drive away from home. It was such a nice change to walk on the trails in there instead of the town roads (although we do appreciate having those too!). 

An odd little cabin, not for syrup

Would these rocks be called Eccentrics?

Strange noises from the ponds, frogs are likely mating now.

 

Cathie almost stepped on this little fellow, scaring him

Mourning Cloak butterfly, emerging after a long winter

A tree-scaling bunny? Strange woods!

There's a strange-looking guy trapped in this tree

On a family note, our second-oldest grandson is graduating from high school this year, and has got his acceptance to his first choice for university, University of Waterloo nanotech engineering. Congratulations Sawyer!

And of course congratulations to his older brother Gavin too, entering his 8 month work term for his co-op program at University of Guelph!

Still some ice left on Lake Huron shores

 

Yesterday I had mentioned that all the snow was gone now. That's true for any open ground and even a lot of the ground in woods, but Lake Huron still has some ice about.

These pictures are from today, on a walk to the shore from our place (about 15 minutes away). The amount of ice visible on a given day varies with wind and current directions, but there's lots of the cold stuff left out in the lake. It's a cool day, about 0C with a good breeze creating a wind chill temperature of -9C.

On our way down to the lakeside, steeper than it looks

The dirty-looking drifts are ice buildup with sand and gravel mixed in

In summer the lake comes almost up to the trees on the right

Here's a picture of the same area from last fall

 

The ice is loose enough that we could see wave action in it

 

 

Signs of Spring are here at last

We've had an unseasonably warm week here, bringing a welcome change from winter's grip. It's hard to take in how fast it has happened.

Here are a couple of pictures taken from a nearby Lake Huron overlook just a couple of weeks ago:

A few more from a short hike at the Pinery Provincial Park about 3 weeks ago:

Some serious Chikadee-watchers. One was perched on his lens hood.

 
Now we have virtually no snow left, and other signs of spring.

Last year a pair of Bald Eagles nested nearby, about a 5 minute drive from our place. They recently came back and started nesting again. We weren't quite prepared in time for the good picture of the male bringing a fish back to the brooding female, but we'll keep trying for better pictures:

The female dining on the fish

The male needed a short rest nearby

One of the spring events we look forward to is the return of the migrating Tundra Swans. Usually it's still cold and snowy when they stop in this area on the way north, so it's a real treat to be able to view them in milder weather this year.

There's a major stopover point about 1/2 hr south of us, near the entrance to the Pinery Provincial Park. Greenway Drive runs East off Hwy 21, and there can be thousands of swans in this area on a given day. Here's a few we took yesterday (Friday) morning:

 

There are reasons to be more optimistic about the coming year, even though Ontario has been a bit slow vaccinating the population at large, mainly I think due to limited supplies of the various vaccines. Here's hoping for a much-improved year ahead!